Pages tagged "pilot"

About 30 people braved the cold weather on Tuesday afternoon to raise their voices at an anti-poverty rally outside city hall in Thunder Bay, Ont.

Demonstrators held signs and set up tents at the event, which was organized by the grassroots group Disrupt and held to protest changes to provincial social assistance programs, including the cancelation of the basic income pilot.

Fourteen participants in Ontario's basic income pilot project met Aug. 8 at a business incubator in the south end of Thunder Bay after the Progressive Conservative governmentannounced it would wind the program downearly.

They had been receiving cheques from the province every month, aspart of a research projectto measure the effect of handing out larger amounts of money than social assistance normally provides, without many requirements. Anyone in Thunder Bay who lived on less than $34,000 individually or $48,000 with a partner had been eligible to apply.

Proponents of Ontario’s now cancelled basic income pilot project descended on the constituency office of Liberal MP and cabinet minister Patty Hajdu on Friday afternoon, hoping she’d help convince the federal government to pick up the slack.

They left somewhat disappointed.

Hajdu told the group social assistance is under the jurisdiction of the province, and there was little she could do to convince Progressive Conservative Premier Doug Ford to change his mind.

Thunder Bay- Superior North MPP Michael Gravelle says he's hopeful that the province's basic income pilot project can still be saved.

Gravelle said he made a Facebook post earlier this month asking for feedback from residents who have been "directly or indirectly affected" by the abrupt and early cancellation of the research project on August 1.

​"This has been a disastrous decision by the provincial government," Gravelle told CBC News, "I don't understand it and certainly based on the responses I've received ... the program needs to be maintained."

The 41-year-old mother of two, who lives in Thunder Bay, Ont., can't stop smiling as she describes the ways in which her life is different, since she was selected to be part of Ontario's basic income pilot project.

"My life has changed so much," she said, explaining that her family can now afford a car, and that she and her partner now have enough money to take their children out to enjoy recreational activities.

What's more, Mendowegan, who recently earned her Grade 12 diploma, plans to attend college this fall. It's something that would have seemed impossible a year ago.

Thunder Bay residents are eagerly awaiting this week’s announcement of how the provincial government will roll out the Basic Income Pilot Project in their community.

On April 24, Premier Kathleen Wynne announced that 4,000 people — in the Hamilton area (which includes Brantford and Brant County), Lindsay, and Thunder Bay — will participate in the first basic income study undertaken by a Canadian government since the Dauphin, Manitoba, experiment finished in 1979.

Under the terms of the pilot, people with low incomes will receive regular payments from the government in place of the social assistance programs to which they’re eligible now. Supporters believe it will be easier for the government to administer than the current system and will help impoverished citizens out by giving them more financial stability.